A/N: ZareEraz here! HQV and I aren't quite done with the Rainbow Mist arc, but I found a good scene to write about anyway. I take artistic license with this scene because I had to change when Zoro woke up to make it work so don't kill me for rewriting the script a little. Other than that, enjoy! :3
Chapter 14: Rude Awakening
"ONWARD! FULL SPEED AHEAD!" Luffy shouted from his perch on the Merry's head. Ussop just crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at his captain. He looked behind him and rolled his eyes at the sleeping Zoro, wondering how the swordsman could sleep through then going into the Rainbow Mist, encountering that loud bunch of kids that the old scientist guy Henzo from Luluka new and then all of Luffy's yelling on top of everything else. It was downright amazing what a heavy sleeper he could be!
"About that…are you certain we're moving forward, Luffy?" Ussop asked, knees trembling.
"Yeah! I said full speed straight ahead!" Luffy answered, like there wasn't a care in the world when they were trapped in this creepy ship graveyard probably filled with real ghosts and not just kids pretending to be ghosts.
"Where exactly is it that you're trying to take us?" Henzo asked, walking up onto the forward deck with Robin in low.
"Weeeellll…" Luffy started, dragging out his first word. "We're heading out of the mist, duh!"
"Don't be ridiculous." Henzo replied, looking around at the wrecked ships suspiciously. "Once you enter Abe's Concert there's no leaving it. This region of the sea is not like any other you've seen before." Just hearing him speak was making Ussop's knees quake even more, but Luffy did get it. What was the big deal? If they sail long enough going straight, they'd pop out of the mist in no time!
Ussop ran over to the port side of the ship and looked down after noticing something strange and scary. The Merry was passing another cluster of wrecked ships and on the figure head of one of them, a white statue of a lady stood out to the sniper. They'd passed that ship already!
"Ummm….I'm pretty sure we passed that ship just a little while ago!" Ussop stammered, slapping his hands on the rail. Okay, this was getting even freakier now!
"Ah, don't worry." Luffy replied. "There's a bunch of ships that all look alike no matter where you go!"
" I don't think so." Robin interrupted, walking up to Ussop. "That exact same ship was wrecked in the very first place we dropped anchor." The archeologist placed her hand on her hip. "I remember seeing that statue of the goddess on the bow."
"But what does that mean?! Does that mean we've come full circle back to where we started from!?" Ussop started freaking out.
"What's the big deal?" Luffy asked.
"That's why I asked if you were sure we were going forward earlier!?" The sniper shrieked.
"I was watching! We were going straight!" Luffy declared, still unfazed by everything.
"How can you possibly see where straight is in all this mist!?" Ussop yelped again, asking questions to try and get Luffy to see that they were in big trouble.
"He can't." Robin replied sternly. She then crossed her arms in front of her body and closed her eyes, pulling her arms to either side of her and chanting, "Seis Fleurs!" Flower petals appeared around Robin's body and fluttered off. No one could see where her arms or legs were, but their heard the cannon at the bow shift and then fire, sending a cannonball flying off into the mist. Luffy laughed, knowing that Robin was the one who shot the cannon (no one else could've really) and stuck his right hand into a salute on his forehead to watch it scream into the distance…and then that whooshing scream was behind him for some reason as the cannonball crashed into the ocean right behind then, sending the Merry reeling on the waves. The impact when a wall of water up into the air, soaking Ussop and a still sleeping Zoro. He didn't even wake up.
"What was the point of that?" Luffy asked, curious.
"She shot the cannon forward but it landed right behind us!" Ussop explained, his suspicions (and Robin's) confirmed.
"As I thought." Robin nodded.
"The fabric of space is distorted here."
"What does that mean?" Luffy asked again, getting a great idea.
"It's something that I remember reading from that Rainbow Mist book earlier." Robin started explaining. "See, the inside of the Rainbow Mist is twisted around itself like a maze-" And then Luffy put his great idea into action, grabbing onto the Merry's horns and stretching his arms as he jumped backwards. The rubber man hooked his leg's around the ship's main mast and smiled hugely, giggling.
"Hold on! No, Luffy!" Ussop shouting, knowing exactly what the boy was up to.
"Gum-Guuuummmm….Rocket!" Luffy shot up ahead of the ship, disappearing into the mist all by himself.
"Too late." Ussop stammered. Robin caught Luffy's hat drifting down through the air when it fell of his head and then folded her arms, keeping the captain's treasured object safe until he came back. If he came back.
"He won't necessarily end up back in the same location that he started in." Henzo stated, like it was no big deal.
"Luffy! You moron!" Ussop shouted, scared for his friend. What if he fell into the ocean and drowned because they couldn't find him?! Zoro would kill them all if Luffy died while he was sleeping and they did nothing about it! And Ussop did not want to be on the wrong end of those swords, especially when Zoro was so protective of Luffy in the first place! But Ussop needn't have worried to much about it in the first place because a few seconds later, Luffy came crashing back onto the Merry, hitting her mainsail with a thump, snapping one of the ropes holding the sail down with his force. That sent him careening down onto the ship, his course shifted by the sail and right into the head of a sleeping Zoro, sending them both tumbling across the forward deck in an unceremonious heap.
"Okay! I get it now! It's a mystery mist!" Luffy declared, sitting up from his spot on a rudely awakened moss head, his face all red from the impact. "No matter which way you go you end up where you started."
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" Zoro shouted, throwing Luffy's butt off of him and holding his aching head.
"Hi, Zoro! You awake now?" Luffy asked, rolling across the deck from the shove and laughing.
"No thanks to you!" The swordsman hiss, a murderous look in his eyes for being disturbed from a good dream. It was about Luffy, but now that he was faced with the real one all it did was tick him off. "What were you doing?!"
"I shot off into the mystery mist and came back to where I started! It was fun!" The rubber man explained, running into the side of the ship.
"What?" Zoro asked looking around. He was definitely not in the same place where he'd fallen asleep - everything was misty and there were tons of ships around him. The green-haired man was so confused.
"It's a long story, sleeping beauty." Ussop sighed, happy that Luffy had gotten back on the ship okay and that he wasn't going to die for letting him wander (or shoot) off.
"I can explain it to you if you want," Henzo started, "But like the long nose fella said, it might take a while-hey! Are you listening?" The old man snapped as he was trying to be nice to the people who were helping him, but Zoro wasn't listening anymore – he was chasing Luffy around the Merry in an irritated rage.
"If I kiss you, will it make it better?" Luffy asked, dodging Zoro's swings as the swordsman tried to bash his head in for being the idiot who woke him up.
"No! Get over here so I can kill you!"
"No way! Not unless I get a kiss!"
"Why would I kiss you after what you did!?"
"Because you love me!"
"I hate you right now!"
"No you don't!"
"Should I be concerned about any of that?" Henzo asked, watching the pair sprint around like madmen.
"Probably not." Robin smiled sweetly. "We just have a very affectionate captain and first mate on board."
"Whatever you say. I don't understand kids much these days, but you've proven yourself to be and intelligent woman." Henzo replied, nodding to a fellow scientist. "I just hope that straw hat kid doesn't get lost in the mist if he does do that stretchy thing again and shoot off somewhere."
"With Zoro around, I don't think Luffy's going anywhere until he's been punished for disturbing his nap." Robin chuckled good naturedly, and the pair of them went back to discussing the Rainbow Mist and its unusual properties ignoring the ruckus behind them.
Meanwhile, Luffy jumped up the mast and Zoro followed close behind. Then the rubber man stretched his arms back behind him and wrapped them around the swordsman's neck and flipped himself upside down while retracting his arms, pulling him down until he was monkeyed on Zoro's back, his arms and legs hugging the man. Zoro growled as he leapt down to the deck, caught in Luffy's embrace and frowned at his position. Despite not wanting a kiss, Luffy snaked his stretchy neck around to Zoro's front and gave him a sloppy one on the lips with a giggle.
"There! I'm sorry!" Luffy smiled. Zoro was blushing, but his frown was still there.
"No you're not." He replied.
"But I really am! I didn't mean to wake you up." Luffy's smiled dropped off, replaced by a pout. Zoro sighed and saw that Luffy really did mean it, knowing that he'd lost the second that cute pout came out. He just really didn't like seeing Luffy sad. So, as an admission of forgiveness for disturbing his nap, Zoro grabbed the boy's head before it could snap back into place and gave Luffy his own kiss – one a lot less sloppy and a lot more sweet. When they broke away, the rubber man was smiling the hugest smile possible (and that was saying a lot since Luffy could stretch his mouth as wide as he needed it to be at any given moment) and Zoro was smiling too.
"You're hopeless." Ussop sighed, shaking his head at the pair. "You just can't win with Luffy can you?" He shrugged.
"Nope." Robin replied, smiling as the swordsman walked up to the forward deck with her captain still clinging to his back.
"And it doesn't really matter that I woke you up, Zoro." Luffy started chattering again. "Since we're probably stuck in here forever, you can take all the naps you want!"
"What do you mean we're stuck in here forever!?" Zoro yelled, his face in a state of shock.
"You're really hopeless." Ussop sighed, getting ready to explain everything. And Robin just smiled.
A/N: And there you go! See you all later! :3